512 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



conditions, and that it can only be relied on in so far 

 as there is ground of assurance that those conditions 

 are realized. 



Now, the observations concerning human affairs 

 collected from common experience, are precisely of 

 this nature. Even if they were universally and exactly 

 true within the bounds of experience, which they never 

 are, still they are not the ultimate laws of human 

 action ; they are not the principles of human nature, 

 but results of those principles under the circum- 

 stances in which mankind have happened to be placed. 

 When the Psalmist " said in his wrath that all men are 

 liars," he enunciated what in some ages and countries 

 is borne out by ample experience ; but it is not a law 

 of man's nature to lie ; though it is. one of the conse- 

 quences of the laws of his nature, that the habit of lying 

 is nearly universal when certain external circumstances 

 exist universally, especially circumstances productive 

 of habitual distrust and fear. When the character of 

 the old is asserted to be cautious, and of the young 

 impetuous, this, again, is but an empirical law ; for it 

 is not because of their youth that the young are impe- 

 tuous, nor because of their age that the old are cau- 

 tious. It is because the old, during their many years 

 of life, have generally had much experience of its 

 various evils, and having suffered or seen others suffer 

 much from incautious exposure to them, have acquired, 

 associations favourable to circumspection : while the 

 young, as well from the absence of similar experience 

 as from the greater strength of the inclinations which 

 tempt them into danger, expose themselves to it more 

 readily. Here, then, is the explanation of the empiri- 

 cal law ; here are the conditions which ultimately 

 determine whether the law holds good or not. If an 

 old man has not been oftener than most young men in 



